saw that trailer last night in the theater and while the story is amazing, we both laughed when it said "from director Angelina Jolie". Apparently this is the early oscar frontrunner for the year and I see it being a really good deserving movie or a grasp for that oscar from Jolie and ends up being utter garbage. I'm hoping it's the first as the story is well deserving of a top notch film treatment, but something turns me off by Jolie making this. I hope I'm proven wrong though.

thehockeyguru wrote:Out of the furnace was a good movie, slow at times but well done.

I watched this on netflix last night. It was interesting to watch the sets and how Braddock looked...but the story just became completely outrageous, i went to sleep with about 30 minutes left, but i'm pretty sure I know how it will end. Bale and the uncle will get into some kind of fire fight with harrleson and get his revenge. Bale was a good character, Casey Affleck was pretty annoying and i didn't buy his one freaked out vet scene. So it pits some blue collar yinzers against a subculture one or two steps lower on the totem pole, appalachians.

Dickie Dunn wrote:If I have one concern about the future of the series...

Spoiler:

to this point in the series the apes and their growing society have been more likeable and easier to root for than the humans. That feeling was subdued a bit in this film because the main villain was an ape and humans were simply trying to survive and did not provoke the war, but I'm not feeling a "damn dirty ape" moment building in this series. Caesar (and his son) is too likeable and too focused on maintaining the peace between the two species to turn into a brutal leader that helps the apes domineer over humans.

After the first two movies in this reboot, I have faith they'll find an appropriate way to tackle this issue. I imagine the impending ape war with the military might set civilization back even further. I'm also interested to see how they work the missing astronauts/time dilation into future movies.

regarding the future sequel, the director had this to say about the original ending of dawn which says a lot about the next one...

Spoiler:

PETER: I heard there was another ending to this movie that we’re not seeing. Is that coming out on the DVD and what is it?

MATT:...And what was different about the ending was that after the ending that you see in the final film, the idea was that the apes went out on a kind of exodus through the city and they gathered on the Golden Gate Bridge in order to look into the distance for the approaching warships. And I felt that it was taking us too far into the next movie. And almost starting the next movie and not letting the emotion of what had just happened, of what Caesar had just achieved and what Caesar had the price that he had paid. It wasn’t letting that resonate and it wasn’t ending, the final shot with again hopefully not spoiler way, but the final shot was actually in a way the very same final shot. It was actually him on top of the Golden Gate Bridge which was covered in apes, all looking out way, way into the distance and to see this really like messed up armada way in the distance showing up like really like ships in disrepair. And it moved into his eyes as he took in the uncertain future.

PETER: The battle that’s coming.

MATT: Yeah. And it had a kind of resonance. It was kind of cool. But I realized that we had skipped too much of the emotion by doing that. And that it actually in a way boxed us in too much to like the exact moment that felt like and also when we started showing this to people, some people are going wait, so does that mean the battle… like I meant for those ships to be way in the distance and they hadn’t even seen the apes, ’cause obviously the apes weren’t gathering to begin the fight. The apes were gathering to look and see the fight that was coming toward them. And so but it was hard to render that idea. And when I showed it to some people they were like going, so that’s it? They’re gonna start fighting right now? And I was like well no, and I realized that we didn’t have the right ending. So actually that last beat that is the last beat on Andy, this is actually kind of a cool thing too.http://www.slashfilm.com/deleted-dawn-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-ending/

I'm glad they changed the ending. To me the ending they used carried a lot of emotional weight to it.

Spoiler:

Caesar has the type of personality where he is really going to carry the burden of the apes being the species to start the war. His now unrealistic hope for apes to be better than humans seems like something he's going to take personally.

I figured that's the direction they would go with the next movie. It'll be interesting to see how they carry out that story. I know the original plan was to have these prequel movies tie into the original series, but at this point I'd also be a fan of them continuing own with their own series.

Non-apes related, I watched Spring Breakers last night on Amazon Instant. Granted, I would enjoy any movie that features Vanessa Hudgens in a bikini 90% of the time, but I thought it was a pretty decent movie. Franco did a helluva job being something other than himself, the bikini clad quartet did a decent enough job with their roles, and there was some social commentary involved. There's definitely worse movies you could spend 90 minutes watching.

eddysnake wrote:saw that trailer last night in the theater and while the story is amazing, we both laughed when it said "from director Angelina Jolie". Apparently this is the early oscar frontrunner for the year and I see it being a really good deserving movie or a grasp for that oscar from Jolie and ends up being utter garbage. I'm hoping it's the first as the story is well deserving of a top notch film treatment, but something turns me off by Jolie making this. I hope I'm proven wrong though.

Watched The Wolverine last night...not really my cup of tea but I could see how people might like it...got excited when I thought the movie ended in 44 minutes when he saved the girl and killed all those Japs...but alas, there was more...

I basically pretend that The Wolverine, XMen3, and Xmens Origins Wolverine don't even exist. Xmen 1, Xmen 2, Xmen First Class, and Xmen Days of Future past are all pretty awesome and make me forger about the other 3 awful movies.

pittsports87 wrote:They are filming Southpaw 5 minutes from me, I might have to go check it out.

Last month they were filming where I work, I immediately introduced myself to the catering chef, threw him some work swag and proceeded to eat with the cast and crew for a couple weeks. Didn't meet anyone although 50 cents bodyguards gave our staff a nice **** warning for someone approaching him in the weight room.

Snowpiercer was pretty good. Not without its flaws, but the good outweighed the bad. Always nice to see something a little different, especially within the summer "blockbuster" realm. I put that in quotes because it's kind of done in that style, with some big-names on the bill, but the budget was only $40 million.

Yeah, I think the thing that made Wolverine tolerable for me (I'm not at all into comic booky, "you can't die, I can't die, but we fight to the death" stuff) is that I just replaced Hugh Jackman's Wolverine character with Clint Eastwood's character from Gran Torino. Much more enjoyable...requisite number of Asians to boot...seamless...

Watched Haywire the other day. I found the reviews very fascinating. It got a very respectable 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. But oddly enough, a 5.8 on IMDB and on RT, 40% of users liked it. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie that was extremely well-received by critics but panned by the "fans". Are there any other notable examples of that?

On another note, I would gladly take Michael Fassbender's place in that hotel fight scene. Rawr.